Good toy, bad toy

I know all children are different but I thought we could share our good toys and not so successful toys!

Best thing ds has ever had is the Imaginext castle. He's 5 and a half now and had it when he was 4 and I think it's been used nearly every day since then.Also used loads are the playmobil dinosaurs. They are lovely.

Bad toy: family member bought him one of those electric ride on toys. The first one didnt work properly. Changed it and the second one worked for about a fortnight. Changed it again and the one we have now works but has hardly been used. Ds just isn't particularly interested. Plus it's bloody quick and I worry about other people's actual real cars being scratched.Other misses have been anything with basically only one use such as animatronic toys and remote controlled anything.

DS got both for his 1st birthday and although he stopped playing with the eggs about 3 years ago (he's 8.5 years old now) DD plays with them lots now and the wooden train set still gets used daily by both children.

Bad: Aquadraw.

By the time the bloody picture fades they're bored waiting and if it gets "too wet" it leaves stains on the mat.

We had the squeaky eggs, ds used them a fair bit and we still use wooden track now.

The other thing that's paid for itself a thousand times over (given that it cost 99p) is a bag of those small plastic soldiers! Got them in the hospital gift shop whilst waiting for ds's appointment and he's used them a lot, he makes landscapes for them using junk modelling and lines them up in their 'teams.' Gallingly they've been used much more than some toys which cost me a hundred times as much.

Diecast cars. DS has at least 40 but he loves and plays with them everyday.

Little plastic soldiers, again played with all the time.

Toy kitchen. Bought a year ago and still played with. As well as the plastic food.

Bad:

I second the Aquadoodle. It was played with a few times but it gets so wet and takes forever to dry.

VTech robot that you put dics in. I can't remember the proper name, but sometimes it doesn't register that you've put a disc in, it doesn't hear DS clap so I have to do it and it reminds you to put a disc in if you take more than 5 seconds to do it! It never gets played with!

The electric Brio trains. One didn't work and the other regularly comes off the track or gets stuck and DS gets frustrated with it. He much prefers the wooden trains you push around the track yourself!

DS has asked for the full collection of Minecraft figures this year and apparently I've been lucky to find them at £6.99 each... They are 3 inches bloody tall bits of square plastic and there are 10 of the buggers £70 for some bits of tat, they better get played with

We have had a similar playmobil experience.In fact I got rid of some of it (eg camper can). However I know some people's children love it and I would probably have loved it at ds's age. But ds just had zero interest in it - probably because it wasn't to do with fighting. Sigh.

Yes, it is a lot to do with personality of kids I think. In general my ds likes the Happyland and it's well played with, but has barely touched the pirate ship.

Likewise, I thought the wooden track would be a winner, he plays with it fine but doesn't love it I wouldn't say. He only plays with it for a few minutes before dinosaurs are breaking up the track and there's an emergency.

Minecraft is basically if Lego was a computer game. You collect things and make things out of them. Eg coal+wood = torch, wheat=bread sand+coal/wood(fire)=glass. It's really simple but also quite clever. Probably the most played computer game in this house, and I sort of approve. Although you can kill each other/animals, there's no gore.

Oh no! My dsis is getting ds2 an aqua doodle for christmas . It was her who suggested it (she thinks she's a bit of an expert on what children need ) and I just went along with it. Is it the quality of the product or just that your dc don't have any interest in it?

One of the best toys any of my four have had are scuttle bug ride ons and a motorbike ride on. They've been played with for years, dd1 and ds1 have only just stopped playing with the motorbike ride ons this year as they're too big now and scrape their knees.

Worst have been vtec toys with alphabet pieces, they've hardly ever been played with.